Luis Bunuel’s Death in the Garden (1956) on blu-ray from Masters of Cinema (UK)

Amid a revolution in a South American mining outpost, a band of fugitives-a roguish adventurer (Georges Marchal), a local hooker (Simone Signoret), a priest (Michel Piccoli), an aging diamond miner (Charles Vanel) and his def-mute daughter-are to flee for their lives into the jungle. Starving, exhausted and stripped of their old identities, they wander desperately lured by one deceptive promise of salvation after another.

Shot in brilliant Eastmancolor and featuring a star-studded cast, Death in the Garden is a pulsating adventure film, alive with Surrealist gestures, making it classic Luis Bunuel.

RealorFake4K.com - Database of UHD titles, discerns between titles from 4K or equivalent sources ("real" 4K") and titles originated from lesser sources (i.e. shot/mastered in 2K, upscaled to 4K - "fake 4K"), where not much difference will be seen compared to a 1080p blu-ray

Henry King's Duel in the Sun (1946) on blu-ray from Kino. This movie has several other uncredited directors, including Josef von Sternberg, who was apparently hired as a visual consultant (for a film in technicolor!).

When her father is hanged for shooting his wife and her lover, half-breed Pearl Chavez goes to live with distant relatives in Texas. Welcomed by Laura Belle and her elder lawyer son Jesse, she meets with hostility from the ranch-owner himself, wheelchair-bound Senator Jackson McCanles, and with lustful interest from womanizing, unruly younger son Lewt.

2017 TBD

James Ivory's Maurice (1987) on blu-ray from Cohen Media Group, from a new 4K restoration

Set against the stifling conformity of pre-World War I English society, E.M. Forster's Maurice is a story of coming to terms with one's sexuality and identity in the face of disapproval and misunderstanding.

Maurice Hall (James Wilby) and Clive Durham (Hugh Grant) find themselves falling in love at Cambridge. In a time when homosexuality is punishable by imprisonment, the two must keep their feelings for one another a complete secret. After a friend is arrested and disgraced for "the unspeakable vice of the Greeks," Clive abandons his forbidden love and marries a young woman. Maurice, however, struggles with his identity and self-confidence, seeking the help of a hypnotist to rid himself of his undeniable urges. But while staying with Clive and his shallow wife, Anne, Maurice is seduced by the affectionate and yearning servant Alec Scudder (Rupert Graves), an event that brings about profound changes in Maurice's life and outlook.

United States military leaders plot to overthrow the President because he supports a nuclear disarmament treaty and they fear a Soviet sneak attack. A classic of suspense directed by John Frankenheimer (The Manchurian Candidate, Ronin) and written for the screen by Rod Serling (”The Twilight Zone”).

Dusty Nelson's Effects (1980) on blu-ray from AGFA and Something Weird Video, restored in 4K from the only 35mm print in existence by The American Genre Film Archive (AGFA)

Cobbled together with loose change by George Romero's friends, Effects is a mesmerizing D.I.Y. frightmare that no one talks about, but everyone should. A group of coked-up filmmakers -- including Tom Dawn of the Dead Savini, Joe Day of the Dead Pilato, and John Tales from the Darkside: The Movie Harrison -- gather in Pittsburgh to make a slasher. As filming begins and accidents happen, it's clear that something isn't right. And no one can be trusted. Landing somewhere between Snuff and a student film by John Carpenter, Effects is a meta-enhanced takedown on the philosophy of horror that doubles as a sleazy and terrifying movie on its own.

The funeral business gets a giant raspberry in this wickedly wacky, resplendently ridiculous farce based on Evelyn Waugh’s macabre comic masterpiece and directed with inspired verve by Tony Richardson (Tom Jones). But the American way of death isn’t the film’s only target: sex, greed, religion and mother love are also in the crosshairs of its satirical shots. Robert Morse plays a bemused would-be poet who gets entangled with an unctuous cemetery entrepreneur (Jonathan Winters), a mom-obsessed mortician (Rod Steiger) and other bizarre characters played by such adept farceurs as John Gielgud, Robert Morley, Tab Hunter, Milton Berle, James Coburn and Liberace.

Quote from: Letterboxd

This is one of those Rosetta Stone films you see and it suddenly explains a lot of things and puts them in their proper context. Particularly, in this case, John Waters. Hilarious, bizarre, and impeccably shot by Haskell Wexler (this looks like "Last Year at Marienbad," and he clearly nicked some shots from Godard's "Contempt")

The Loved One is a chiller. i think perhaps John Waters mentions it now and then? though if anything it explains Phantom of the Paradise, and it's worth seeing for general good humor and Paul Williams like this

Maybe. Twentynine Palms and Flandres do. Twentynine Palms isn't listed as having English subs on Blaq Out's website but they've been confirmed by someone who purchased the set, and Amazon France lists the box as having them. For the other titles it's unclear. Whatever, the pictures stay.

Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Eight Hours Don’t Make a Day (1972-1973) on limited edition blu-ray from Arrow UK. Also contains the new documentary Fassbinder (2015).

Rainer Werner Fassbinder had been making feature films for three years – and already amassed a filmography that would satisfy most careers – when he decided to take on a bigger challenge. Teaming up with West German television channel WDR, he conceived of Eight Hours Don’t Make a Day, a series that would extend to five feature-length episodes to be broadcast at monthly intervals.

Centring on the Krüger family, as well as their lovers, in-laws, friends and co-workers, the series takes a sometimes comic, sometimes dramatic look at domestic relationships and labour relationships, with particular focus on skilled worker Jochen (Gottfried John, Berlin Alexanderplatz, Goldeneye) and his new girlfriend, Marion (Hanna Schygulla, The Marriage of Maria Braun).

Reminiscent of working-class soap operas such as Coronation Street and the family-based sitcoms of Carla Lane, Eight Hours Don’t Make a Day has been a one of the more difficult to find entries of Fassbinder’s extraordinarily prolific output, but is now presented here in full and newly restored by the Fassbinder Foundation.

In Depression-era America, desperation spawned a bizarre fad: the dance marathon. Couples competed to stay on their feet for thousands of hours, and audiences flocked to watch. But Gloria (Fonda) doesn't think of herself as a spectacle. She is a fierce, unforgiving contestant in a battle she's determined to win. At stake is much more than the $1.500 prize. The marathon is her only hope for dignity, accomplishment...and salvation.

July 24, 2017

Arthur Penn's Mickey One (1965) on blu-ray from Indicator (UK)

Influenced by the French New Wave, director Arthur Penn's ground-breaking and wildly inventive Mickey One is a tale of a man on the run - his first teaming with Warren Beatty, two years before Bonnie and Clyde. The film also boasts a classic jazz score by Eddie Sauter and Stan Getz. World premiere Blu-ray.

Produced by Stanley Kramer and based on an original screenplay by Dr. Seuss, Roy Rowland's pioneering wild fantasy adventure is visually stunning and remains one of American cinema's most beloved – and bizarre – children's films.

Georg Wilhelm Pabst (Pandora's Box, Diary of a Lost Girl) made a flawless transition from silent to sound filmmaking with, Westfront 1918 and Kameradschaft, a pair of strongly anti-war titles (Pabst himself was a prisoner of war for the duration of WWI) that combined elements of Expressionism and New Objectivity to stunning effect.

In Westfront 1918, four infantrymen on the Western Front suffer the everyday hardships and insanity of trench warfare, and in Kameradschaft, a team of German miners risk their lives to rescue a team of French miners left trapped after an underground explosion.

Sharing many thematic elements, as well as key cast and crew (most notably cinematographer Fritz Arno Wagner, M, Nosferatu, Der müde Tod), Westfront 1918 and Kameradschaft represents a master director at the height of his powers, and The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present both these titles for the first time ever on Blu-ray in a special Dual Format edition.

A timid bank teller anticipates a bank robbery and steals the money himself before the crook arrives. When the sadistic crook realizes he's been fooled, he tracks down the teller and engages him in a cat-and-mouse chase for the cash.

There are 600 miles of freeway in Los Angeles. Every night, millions of angry motorists speed through its asphalt maze. Some of them have guns. One of them enjoys killing people. Now a traumatized ER nurse (Darlanne Fluegel of Crime Story), an acerbic talk-radio host (Richard Belzer of Homicide and Law & Order: SVU) and a stranger with a dark secret (James Russo of Donnie Brasco) must join to stop the bible-quoting madman (Billy Drago of The Untouchables) who has promised the panicked city one final fast lane massacre. Michael Callan, Kenneth Tobey and Clint Howard co-star in this suspense thriller directed by Francis Delia that shocked audiences at the height of LA's real-life freeway shooting sprees.

Robert Aldrich’s The Big Knife (1955) on blu-ray from Arrow Academy, from a new 2K restoration from original film elements produced by Arrow Films exclusively for this release

Mere months after delivering one of the definitive examples of film noir with Kiss Me Deadly, Robert Aldrich brought a noir flavour to Hollywood with his classic adaptation of Clifford Odets stage play, The Big Knife.

Charles Castle, one of Hollywood s biggest stars, looks like he has it all. But his marriage is falling apart and his wife is threatening to leave him if he renews his contract. Studio boss Stanley Shriner Hoff isn't taking the news too well, and he'll do anything he can to get his man to sign on the dotted line even if means exposing dark secrets…

Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s Suddenly, Last Summer (1959) on blu-ray from Twilight Time

The only son of wealthy widow Violet Venable dies while on vacation with his cousin Catherine. What the girl saw was so horrible that she went insane; now Mrs. Venable wants Catherine lobotomized to cover up the truth.